Quick prayer request / update

Quick update.

My great-aunt died suddenly on Sunday.  She was out for Mother’s Day brunch with her daughter and grandson, when she collasped at the table at the restaurant (heart attack).  Please pray for her daughter, Carol, who’s an only child and now has to deal with the details of the memorial service, grief, etc., as well as continuing to deal with her father’s health issues (advanced Alzheimer’s), and some current health issues of her own.

More later …

Micah 6:8 song …

I can’t even begin to tell you how often the song based on Micah 6:8 gets stuck in my head.

Years and years ago, I had an old praise album that had a version of this song that I listened to frequentlly and it became firmly imbedded in my brain.  But that was well before the days of CD’s and I’ve long since rid myself of all my old record albums.

I’d been wanting to listen to it again recently, and although I didn’t find the very same version online anywhere, I did find another versio of it here:   Free Christian Music  (I couldn’t link to it directly, but if you scroll down into the Acapella section at the bottom of the page, you should see the link to the MP3.)

Based on Micah 6:8 –

He hath shewed thee, O man, what is good; and what doth the LORD require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God? (KJV)

Please pray for my dad’s eye surgery …

The stomach flu’s been going around here lately.  I thought at first it was going to be just a 24-hour thing (probably I’d eaten something that disagreed with me), but now it’s on it’s third round of 24-hour sickness.  So I guess not.  I’m still feeling tired and achy, but definitely much better than earlier in the week.  I haven’t done much online or otherwise all week, so that’s why I’ve been scarce here in blog land.

 

Now for the main point of this post:  My dad was on vacation in New Mexico this past week (he was going to be there for three weeks), but had to cut his trip short so he could return home to have major eye surgery (a detached retina).  His surgery’s scheduled for first thing Monday morning, so if you think about it, please pray.

 

Although the surgery itself is fairly major, it’s the recovery time that’s stressing him out right now.  He found out that for about four weeks, he’ll need to be face down 23 hours each day.  Yep, you read that right.  He’ll have a chair that looks sort of like one of those massage chairs you see in the mall where it supports your face while you’re leaning forward.  He’ll have to sit in that chair constantly when he’s awake, and when he’s in bed at night, there’ll be some sort of brace that will support him in the face down position while he sleeps.

 

It sounds awful, doesn’t it?

 

He’s completely lost all useable vision in one eye at this point.  I’m hoping/praying that they’ll be able to restore his vision … obviously vision is an important sense for most everyone, but for my dad, his greatest joys in life now that he’s retired consist of golfing and bowling – both activities that require keen eyesight, accurate depth perception, and excellent hand-eye coordination.

 

Just so you understand, my dad REALLY likes golfing and bowling … he travels all over the country for tournaments, etc., throughout the year, so this isn’t just a weekend past-time … these are both things he could’ve pursued on a professional level when he was younger.  If he loses his eyesight in that eye (which would mean serious problems with depth perception), he’ll not only lose vision, he’ll also lose the ability to participate at the same level in things that make him “tick.”

 

Prayers appreciated.

An odd Mother’s Day gift …

I went to my business mailbox today and there was a long thin package from FedEx waiting for me.  Since I hadn’t ordered anything, I couldn’t imagine what I’d been sent.

When I opened the box, there was a single, fresh, long-stemmed, white rose with a Happy Mother’s Day note in the box with the rose.  A handwritten note, no less.  Now the unusual aspect of the gift is who it came from.  You’ll never guess.

Since you’ll never guess, I’ll tell you:  The rose was from TiVo.com.  Yep, the TiVo company sent me a rose for Mother’s Day, complete with a personalized, handwritten note saying that they liked reading The Simple Mom blog.

I fully realize that it’s just a ploy to get me to blog about their gift (and hey, it worked!)  , but I have to admit that it brightened my day considerably.

Knowing that Mother’s Day is coming up is actually sort of sad for me.  My husband used to always take the kids shopping for special Mother’s Day gifts and cards for me, but since his diagnosis, etc., that sort of thing is now a thing of the past.  I know that for the most part, Mother’s Day is just a lot of hype and a lot of people feel a little disappointed or let down when their reality doesn’t match the hype in greeting cards or television commercials.  I guess for me, it’s just one more reminder of how much life has changed and how much I’ve lost the past few years.

Anyway, the silly TiVo rose made me smile … even if they were only thinking about me for publicity purposes, it was touching that someone actually sat down and wrote out a longish note to me personally, even though they don’t even know me.

That’s kind of pitiful, isn’t it?   Sigh …

Here’s a photo of my rose (and yes, that’s a TiVo stamp of some sort on one of the rose petals … LOL!):

Celebrate today! ;-)

Today, April 30th, is:

• Hairstyle Appreciation Day (”Oh, I just love your mullet!”) 
• Mean Girls Day (is this a day for mean girls to freely give put-downs, or is it a day to love your enemies and treat the mean girls in your life the way you’d wish they treat you?)
• Mr. Potato Head Day (do you play with Mr Potato Head or dress yourself like him?)
• Wee Folk Day (children? short people? Leprechauns?)

… and a very merry un-birthday to you!  (Unless it is your birthday, that is … then have a happy one!) 

 

“Go to Church Day”

A couple of men in Olympia, Washington (my former hometown) have started a ministry — “Go to Church Day” – to encourage folks who are former church attenders to visit a church of their choice on Sunday, May 4th (that’s this coming weekend for anyone else like me who’s a bit calendar-impaired). 

Since the timing was right to mention it before the deadline, I thought I’d toss in a note here on my blog just in case anyone out there’s been thinking about heading back to church one of these days.  This might be the perfect opportunity — chances are good you won’t be the only new visitor on the official “Go to Church Day.” 

Also, if you live in the Tacoma/Auburn/Kent/Puyallup/Federal Way area of Washington state, feel free to swing by and visit the church where I’m now on staff part-time.  We’d love to welcome you! 

White River Presbyterian Church
http://whiteriverpres.org

Always learning …

It seems like I’m always learning something new.  My latest education was about poison oak/ivy/sumac.  Did you know that it takes 12 hours to 2 weeks for the symptoms of exposure to show up?  Neither did I.  I thought it would be the almost instantaneous reaction like you get from nettles.

The other evening I was sitting in the audience at my youngest daughter’s play, when my thumb suddenly started itching.  Awful itching.  Drive-you-up-the-wall sort of itching.  Since it was dark in the audience, I couldn’t really look at my thumb to see what was happening, but it drove me crazy all through the play.

Later when I could look at it, I had a series of raised and fluid-filled blisters along the length of my thumb.  Omigosh.  I knew what it was.  Some sort of chemical burn, probably from one of the “poison” plants.  I thought long and hard about what I might have come in contact with at the play or on my way into the building, but I knew there was nothing even vaguely ressembling plants of that sort in the parking lot or around the building.

Long story short, the “burn” on my thumb is still healing but fortunately the itching has stopped.  Out of curiosity I did a search online about symptoms related to poison oak, etc., and that’s when I discovered that it’s a number of hours (at least!) from contact before symptoms appear.  Makes me wonder what I might have touched in the past week or so?

I even learned that it’s possible to come in contact with it from other people, their clothes, and even the family pet (the pet’s fur usually protects them from the poison actually contacting their skin).

“CAUTION: Burning poison oak can result in a dangerous smoke that can cause severe symptoms to the eyes, nose, throat and lungs.”  ( http://www.calpoison.org/public/poak.html )

Prayer, praise, rain, snow … life

We’ve had the strangest weather here the past week or so. Supposedly we’re well into springtime, but it keeps snowing here in the Seattle/Tacoma/Puget Sound area.  Not just an occasional flake mixed in with hail or rain, but SNOWING … sticking on the ground snow, huge beautiful flakes.
 
Our local weatherman said on the news over the weekend, “If you want warm Spring weather, go anywhere besides the Pacific Northwest.”  So I’m assuming everyone who lives elsewhere and is reading this is probably thinking, “Snow? In late April?  Oh, I don’t think so.”
 
I’ll definitely be ready for real spring weather when it arrives this year.  Assuming, of course, that it’s actually going to head our direction this year.  lol 

I have a quick prayer request for you all.  I’m facing a bit of an urgent crisis at the moment (can’t go into details, sorry), but I’d really appreciate prayer that this would resolve itself as quickly as possible.

I’ve been feeling for a couple of weeks like I’ve been walking around telling myself to “stay calm, stay calm.”  But since it’s a crisis with a deadline when things actually become more than just a crisis (yes, things can get worse), I’ve found that as that deadline gets closer (well, actually, it’s here now), I’m finding myself so “un-calm”, I can hardly breathe today.

I’ve been practicing my own prayer message from the other day … and it helps.  But it’s one of those times when God needs to reach out and do something NOW or … or … oh, gosh, I don’t even want to think about what the “or” could mean.

Actually, there are several looming crisis areas about to crash in on me (some things happening with my husband’s health and lifestyle choices, some other things too painful to talk about, and just some general “stuff” that’s rearing it’s ugly head).  I guess it’s that old thing about when it rains, it pours.

For the lyrics to the song that’s been living in my head all day today, go to my post from a couple of months ago: ”Praise You In This Storm.”

 

“Lord, Teach Us to Pray”

Sunday evening, I’m going to be sharing a brief teaching about prayer, (I’m calling it, ”Lord, Teach Us to Pray”) at the youth/young adult “Adventure” meeting at church.

Because it was on my mind and heart today, I thought I’d type up the story about how I came to understand how to pray after becoming a Christian a number of years ago (I came to Christ at age 25 … and I’m 48 now … you do the math of how long I’ve been a believer). 

Here’s the story in a nutshell:

When I was a brand new baby Christian, I was sitting alone in my room one evening about to read the Bible. Before I started reading, I felt like I wanted to pray first, but as I opened my mouth to pray, I realized I really didn’t know what I was doing.

The only prayers I’d ever said before were things like, “Now I lay me down to sleep … blah, blah, blah … if I should die before I wake” (wow, that’s the stuff little kids’ nightmares are made of, believe me!).

Or occasionally if I visited a church with a friend, or attended a wedding or funeral, I’d hear people reciting the Lord’s Prayer. I think just by virtue of growing up as an American kid in suburbia, I knew the Lord’s Prayer by heart, even though my family never attended church during my growing-up years.

But as a new Believer, I found when it came time to sit down and actually communicate with God person-to-person, I honestly didn’t know where to start.  After all, I was only on my second read-through of the New Testament and I hadn’t even started attending a church yet.  My exposure to sincere, heartfelt Christian prayers was severely limited.

I sat there on my bed and pondered what it meant to pray. I knew prayer was talking to God. I knew people asked for stuff while they were praying.

Was that all it was? Presenting a heavenly “to-do” list or a Christmas list of wishes to God?

Or was there something more to it than that?

Was it just a matter of praying a mindlessly repeated, rote prayer, maybe something like the Lord’s Prayer or that scary “Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep” death prayer?

Or something more?

Not having a clue what I was doing, I bowed my head and said to God as best I knew how, “Lord, teach me to pray.” Amen. End of prayer.

Eloquent, huh?

Well, not surprisingly, I didn’t see any neon lights shining on the ceiling of my room detailing the how-to’s of an effective prayer life. I didn’t even get an inner “hunch” about what to do. I just sort of sat there on my bed and wondered what to do next.  Should I fix a snack? Brush my teeth? Let the cat out? Start reading?

The reading idea won, so I opened my Bible and continued on with my reading of the Gospel of Luke.

This is what I read:

Luke 11:1 (NASB) –

Now, it came to pass, as He [Jesus] was praying in a certain location, when He ceased, that one of His disciples said to Him, “Lord, teach us to pray …”

 

What?! It caught me up short.

I’d just asked God that exact same question! Was I about to find the answer to my request the first time I opened up the Bible after asking?  Hm.  Interesting.

The story continued:

Luke 11:2-4 (NASB) –

2 And He said to them, “When you pray, say:
‘Father, hallowed be Your name.
Your kingdom come.
3 ‘Give us each day our daily bread.
4 ‘And forgive us our sins,
For we ourselves also forgive everyone who is indebted to us.
And lead us not into temptation.’ “

That sounds sort of familiar, doesn’t it?

I immediately realized it was a shorter version of the Lord’s Prayer, so I did some quick digging around in the footnotes of my fresh, clean, brand new, hardly ever been opened study Bible and found a reference at the bottom of the page directing me to the sixth chapter of Matthew.

I read:

Matthew 6:5-13 (NASB) –

5 “When you pray, you are not to be like the hypocrites; for they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and on the street corners so that they may be seen by men. Truly I say to you, they have their reward in full.
6 “But you, when you pray, go into your inner room, close your door and pray to your Father who is in secret, and your Father who sees what is done in secret will reward you.
7 “And when you are praying, do not use meaningless repetition as the Gentiles do, for they suppose that they will be heard for their many words.
8 “So do not be like them; for your Father knows what you need before you ask Him.
9 “Pray, then, in this way:
‘Our Father who is in heaven,
Hallowed be Your name.
10 ‘Your kingdom come
Your will be done,
On earth as it is in heaven.
11 ‘Give us this day our daily bread.
12 ‘And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors.
13 ‘And do not lead us into temptation, but deliver us from evil. [For Yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen.]‘

 

Wow. There it was again … more prayer teaching straight from the lips of Jesus.

Jesus’ disciples had asked Him to teach them how to pray and He responded by essentially reciting the Lord’s Prayer.

I sat there almost flabbergasted. I knew that I — yes, little ol’ me — was His disciple now, too. And, wonder of wonders, nearly 2,000 years earlier, His first disciples had asked Him the very same question I’d just asked.

In the quietness of my room, I’d asked God to teach me something specific, and the next time I opened my Bible – literally less than a minute later – I just happened to stumble upon the very spot in Luke where Jesus’ disciples asked Him the exact same question.

Coincidence? Hmm … probably not. 

So with both of those “Lord’s Prayer” Bible passages open before me, I muddled through my own little exercise in logic.

“If Jesus answered the disciples’ request for teaching them about prayer by reciting the Lord’s Prayer, how does that jibe with His instruction in Matthew 6 about how we shouldn’t be using mindless repetition when praying?

“It seems like most folks I know who recite the Lord’s Prayer are simply going through the motions, repeating something they’ve learned by rote – sort of like saying the Pledge of Allegiance – but not really understanding or thinking about what they’re saying. It seems like, in the life of many people, the Lord’s Prayer is almost the very definition of mindless repetition.

“So if we aren’t supposed to pray using mindless repetition, what on Earth’s going on here? Why did Jesus tell them to pray that particular prayer?”

I sat there scratching my head. Think, think, think. I knew there was probably an answer somewhere in the text for this dilemma I was facing in my brain. But what could it be?

Suddenly I found myself drawn to one little phrase in Matthew 9:2 – “Pray, then, in this way.”

I noticed that it didn’t say, “Repeat the following, word-for-word.”

It also didn’t say, “Turn off your brain and repeat after me.”

It simply said, pray like this. Pray in this manner. This is how to pray. This is the general format of prayer.

The lightbulb came on in my head! The Lord’s Prayer wasn’t simply a prayer to repeat verbatim … it was also a pattern for prayer. Pray in this way. Pray according to this pattern. Pray in this fashion.

As I re-read the Lord’s Prayer with fresh eyes, I saw that it contained topical sentences, almost like I was looking at a ready-made outline for what to include in an effective and meaningful prayer time.

–more later–

 

This and that … but not much happening

I really have disappeared, haven’t I?  I’ll try to do a quick catch-up about the happenings of the past couple of weeks (forgive me if I repeat things I’ve mentioned previously).

I had a nasty cold/flu bug that laid me flat for a number of days.  The cough and tiredness still hangs on a bit, but on the whole, I feel so much better.  But because of being sick for so long, this update will probably be fairly short.  After all, it’s hard to do much or have much happen in your life while lying in bed or on the couch. lol

Our local newspaper is going to have me write a regular column on simple living.  It’ll be written not just by me as “me”, but by me as the Neighborhood Outreach Director from my church.  I’m quite excited about it. 

My computer appeared to die completely, but the guy from Dell was here yesterday and able to get it all up and running with just a few quick repairs/replacements.  AND everything was still under warranty.  So now I have a good-as-new computer … with no additional expense.  Very nice. 

One of my children has been fighting a nasty virus since back around Christmas time.  We even ended up at the emergency room a couple of weekends ago because she was so sick.  Poor kid.  She’s been tested for everything under the sun, but it all came back to just being a virus.  The doctor at the hospital said it’s been a really nasty year for viral infections … people have been getting one thing after another after another.  The doctors think my daughter just wasn’t recovering fully before she’d get hit by the latest round of whatever was going around so it’s had the appearance of non-stop illness.  Anyway, all that to say, she woke up on Wednesday with life in her eyes, color in her cheeks, and a bounce in her step again.  Hooray!  Honestly, I’d almost forgotten what “healthy” looked like for her.

Well, that’s it for now.  I have some ideas for some more posts so I suspect I’ll be here in the Blogosphere more often again.